InAbled Cities: Developing Inclusive urban environments for physical activity of people with disAbilities and senior citizens

Background The InAbled Cities project is an intersectoral partnership of 6 organisations from 5 EU countries, that aimed to increase the participation of people with disabilities, especially older people, in health-enhancing physical activities within urban areas. The urban context was given priority due to the increasing rate of urban population growth, rising inequality and vulnerability to social exclusion, mainly among older people and people with disabilities. Objectives The objective of the project was to promote and enable physical activity in open urban areas for people with physical disabilities with a special focus on older people, thus building healthy, active and inclusive cities. A healthy, active city is one that is continually creating and improving opportunities to enable all its citizens to be physically active in day-to-day life. This includes overcoming the barriers that discourage physical activity in cities especially among the target groups. Implementation The implementation of the project’s activities was built upon the outputs and knowledge from the preparation phase, and consisted in the execution of Pilot actions in 2 territories which aimed at testing the physical activity exercises, developed during the preparation phase, with the target population and were supervised by physiotherapists. There were 2 rounds of testing and an evaluation period in between. Implementation of the Pilot actions was supported digitally by the InAbled Cities App. Achievements The main results of the project were:•Practical Intervention Methodology on delivering physical activity exercises for older people and people with disabilities using urban environments and infrastructures;•Citizen Engagement Strategy describing a planned process for encouraging the project target groups to actively participate in the project; •Mobile App facilitating engagement of the target groups;•Final Evaluation Report with conclusions and recommendations.